CLASSIC MYSPACE BLOG - RABBID LASSIE

Note: These accounts first appeared in my MySpace blog. I'm reposting the ones I'm particularly proud of - giving my Facebook friends a chance to see them. The obnoxious blue background on the illustrations is a relic from the MySpace format. I could change it, but I'm too lazy, so blue it stays. In reviewing what I wrote last year, I've noticed I never really completed the story. (I think I had grown frustrated with the MySpace blog and had given up on the enterprise). Needless to say, there's more to be said, here, so stay tuned...

RABBID LASSIE PT 1
(originally posted Monday, July 30th, 2007)

Fall, 1985. Music equipment costs hundreds, even thousands of dollars. In my entire career as a senior at California High School, I'm up about a buck thirty-seven in change. Sure, Grandma Hansen sends me ten dollars on my birthday but I use it to buy pot from Suzie Knudson. She's all, dude, chill, as she rests her head against the wall of the smoking area in back of the school. My Mormon hands tremble as I hand over the cash.

Near penniless, I don't know how I've come to possess a drum kit. Some of its components Dad brought home from his compulsive scouring of garage sales, thrift stores and flea markets. The rest I think Jef got me. I'd feel indebted to him, but he got gain by ripping off all them old Alamo cunts while filling their prescriptions at Thrifty's. So I guess I'm indebted to them.

Half my drum sticks are frayed if not entirely busted at the tips. None of them match.

RABBID LASSIE PT 2
(originally posted Tuesday, July 31st, 2007)

The toms are wrapped in purple felt.

The bass pedal is held together with shoestring.

The high hat cymbals look as though they've spent their days beneath the tire of a Mack truck.

I don't know I'm supposed to cinch up the wire below my snare so it hangs rattling below.

These are but a few examples of the challenges I face, but of greatest concern: I have absolutely no sense of rhythm and belong nowhere behind a drum kit.

RABBID LASSIE PT 3
(originally posted Friday, August 3rd, 2007)

TRENT
We're somewhere around age fourteen. We see each other often at church and Boy Scouts. On a hike one day he shows up with a tape recorder. One of these dohickeys:

Trent: I started a band.
Me: Oh yeah? Who's in it?
Trent: I am.
Me: Oh.
Trent: I call it Miller's Delight.
Me: Huh.
Trent: Wanna hear a song?
Me: Okay.

He hits the play button. It's him singing, punctuated by the sounds of certain novelty toys from his mom's preschool, namely one of those cylinder things that makes a moo-cow sound (which he has also brought - for reasons unknown - on the hike).

He invites me over to his house to sit in on his next "session." I play the triangle and a bongo. He, a toy guitar. One of our songs is called "Impaled on a Sharp Stick."

Later he gets a real guitar. I - as I've mentioned - amass a drum kit. For the next couple of years we play with various combinations of friends under band titles like SO/80, Pippi and the Fux, and Decent Phlegm. Senior year we start Clam Plate Orgy with Joey and Mike.

RABBID LASSIE PT 4
(originally posted Monday, August 6th, 2007)

After jamming one evening, Trent and Jeff Anderson wait for me to leave the room, then dump pencil shavings all over the surface of my snare drum. Apparently they're out to test their theory that I never practice my instrument. A couple weeks later I spot them hovering around the set and snickering as they find the snare just as they had left it - in the same messy state, untouched. After owning up to their plot to expose me I'm all, Christ, I could have told you I never practice. Every time I go near that thing I want to put a steak knife through my eye. Now who wants snickerdoodles?

Back then, why do I think Lars Ulrich possesses a drumming ability that extends beyond that which is humanly possible and into the realm of the miraculous?

Hypothetical Dad who is in tune with my needs as a developing human: ...and so Son, that's where babies come from. Oh, and Lars Ulrich fucking sucks. Proceed accordingly.

But no, no one sets me straight and I end up approaching the drumset with nothing but fear and trepidation. This reflects on the bands I help create and the music we play - mocking, I suppose, more serious minded performers - all the while being very jealous of them and their talents. Trust me, if the Good Lord had seen fit to endow me with any amount of ability, I would have run with it, yes sirree Bob.

With the creation of Clam Plate Orgy, I expect more of the same. I envision another short-lived project where we jam a half-dozen times after school in my garage as Mom's daycare kids run amok all around us. We push them out of the way and record a few songs. Trent dubs a bunch of copies and prints up cassette cover art and lyrics. I contribute very little in the process, but reap many of the rewards. As we distribute our product in the halls of California High, girls actually break from tradition and pay attention to me.

That's what I expect, but nothing can be further from the case. For one, Mike and Joey hate the name Clam Plate Orgy and Trent is siding with them.

Rabbid Lassie is our new name. We've kind of composed a song, "Negri." The guys had been listening to a lot of DRI lately and one can easily recognize the influence. The lyrics, I think, were penned by Trent and Jef Barber. In scope, they're limited to the boundaries of California High, as they warn of a nasty vice principle. They harken back to the attitude we once had in all our previous band incarnations which I am trying to cling to, though it is obvious things are going in a different direction.

Joey writes his vocals from here on out. He is serious about hardcore - true to the cause. They reflect classic Reagan-era angst and also make repeated appeals for unity within the scene. I'm hearing a lot of this lately. Slogans like keep the scene tight get bandied about. Try as I may, I can't identify with the sentiment. I'm left wondering how long I will last with so many strikes against me. I want out but I don't want to let Trent down.

Bassist Mike is well connected. Almost as soon as we're up and running, there's talk about booking shows...

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